Lorna Hastings
Lorna Hastings is a character appearing in the episode Four Funerals and a Wedding of the ITV crime drama Midsomer Murders. Married to Fred Hastings, she ended up pregnant to a teak farmer from Burma by the name of Jack Braintree and gave birth to Thomas Benjamin Hastings. A few years later (either 1 or 4 because the list of casualties from the Marwood Hall Fire in the episode state that Henry, who was listed as Benjamin, died at 4 years old yet Barnaby states that it happened a year after both babies were born), a fire broke out in Marwood Hall where she was stuck inside the nursery with all the babies. Her husband Fred had died trying to save her and she was forced to either save Henry Marwood or her son Benjamin. In the end, she ended up saving Benjamin and left Henry to die. Afterwards, she had swapped identities between Benjamin and Henry in order to ensure her son a better life as she knew she would eventually have to find work now that her husband had died. After she was let go from her job, she had been given work in Aynscombe Farm. After Henry's (Benjamin's) first wife had died, Mildred Danvers, who had dated Jack when they both lived in Broughton, saw Henry (Benjamin) at his wife's funeral. When she saw his face, she immediately saw that he was Jack's son and that Lorna must have been the mother. Mildred had Lorna come to the Knox where she informed Lorna that she will be informing the necessary people as soon as she could. Lorna had Mildred get her a glass of water and then put barbiturate in her hip flask which killed Mildred later that night. After Mildred was found dead, her cousin Anthony Gant had taken various things from her room and found a photo that Midred kept of herself and Jack Braintree which he figured out must have been the reason behind Mildred's death. Before the Skimmington Fayre, Lorna visited Anthony to discuss a deal between the legal dispute that he had against the Skimmington Society with the common knowledge of his scandal back in Oxford. However, because he had found Mildred's photo, he had evidence to convict Lorna of murder. During the Skimmington Ride, Lorna had taken Fiona Aynscombe's car keys where she took a rifle out of her car before heading to the clock tower. Gant had been chosen as the Rider and she had shot Gant though the head at the end of the Ride. Soon after her eyelashes were discovered in the hip flask and on the rifle sight, Barnaby and Jones set out collecting DNA swab samples in order to find a match. Dr. O'Dowd had agreed to contain all the DNA samples at his office. Lorna, in an attempt to deflect suspicion, knocked out O'Dowd and proceeded to swap her DNA sample with Cathy Hewlett's. O'Dowd regained consciousness but he and Lorna had a mutual trust that he would not give up her name to the authorities. Cathy had broken into the rectory prior to the Skimmington Ride to find out more about the legal dispute on the Skimmington Society when she stumbled on Mildred's photo which she took before she left. After Peggy announced that she and Henry would marry. In an attempt to prevent the wedding, Cathy talked with Lorna about the photo seeing that Jack was most likely Henry's real father, not knowing she had found the connection between the murders and Lorna. Later, Lorna had gone to Cathy's home and struck her over the head before taking some of her clothes and making it look as if Cathy had left the village. She buried Cathy in Anthony's grave but it rained the next day revealing Cathy's body in the grave. She had left for Causton with Peggy and Henry where she would take a train to Oxford. But before she could leave, Barnaby had found the photo and made the connection which he caught up to her at Causton Station. She had confessed to the murders and of Henry's (Benjamin's) real lineage. She later was able to see Peggy and Benjamin get married before she was taken to prison. Category:Minor characters Category:Murderer